AUSTRALIA’S powerhouse WBC super-middleweight champion Sakio Bika has the world at his feet and is determined to put unbeaten American Anthony Dirrell there as well on Sunday (Australian time) in Carson, California.

It’s been a disastrous month for Australian fighters with world title losses suffered by Daniel Geale, Blake Caparello and Jarrod Fletcher.

Bika is out to reverse the trend even though he will start Sunday’s fight as the underdog despite retaining his title against Dirrell with a draw in Brooklyn in December.

Bika, 35, a savage brawler who would throw bricks as well as punches if he could, represented Cameroon at the Sydney Olympics and has made his home there since.

He came on strongly in the second half of their last fight after being knocked down early and survived despite a point deduction for repeated infringements - low blows, elbows and punches to the back of the head.

Bika

Sakio Bika punches the heavy bag.Source:News Limited

said he would’t tone down his style on Sunday.

``I’m coming out to fight. If he wants to take my belt off of me he better come prepared,’’ Bika said.

Victory could see Bika in a lucrative battle in England against popular Londoner George Groves, who lost his last fight to Carl Froch before a crowd of 80,000 at Wembley Stadium.

The 29-year-old Dirrell, who has 26 fights and a draw in his 27 starts, has promised to box and move more than he did in their first fight and capitalise on Bika’s old legs.

``I know it’s going to be an easier fight because last time I didn’t really stick to my game plan, but this time it’s on,’’ Dirrell said.

``I’m more focused and ready than ever. He’s looking past me and he can’t do that. I’m coming to get it.’’

Bika has 32 wins against five losses and three draws, with 22 wins by KO.

TEN years ago, I travelled with Sam Soliman to the casino town of Temecula in Southern California to see him bamboozle and befuddle Dutchman Raymond Joval to become the No.1 contender for the world middleweight title.

It remains one of the most mesmerising displays of boxing skill and defensive wizardry I’ve seen and at the time Soliman was in talks to fight the rising young hotshot from Arkansas named Jermain Taylor.

The fight didn’t happen. Taylor got the world title shot instead and beat the great Bernard Hopkins, not once but twice.

A decade later Soliman will finally fight Taylor in a battle of veterans with Soliman defending the IBF world middleweight title.

Soliman should win well even though he will be 41 a few weeks after the October 4 battle that will give him the biggest payday of his career. The fight will likely take place in Florida or Connecticut.

Taylor is one of the big names of boxing of the last 20 years but quit the fight game for two years after suffering a brain bleed against German Arthur Abraham in 2009. He was cleared to fight after undergoing tests at the Mayo Clinic but many experts say he should have stayed retired.

He has had four wins on the comeback trail. Although he has not made the middleweight limit of 72.3kg since 2007 he was just a fraction over when he beat previously unbeaten Caleb Truax in Biloxi, Mississippi in 2012.

Truax says Soliman will give Taylor a boxing lesson.

Significantly Taylor’s four losses in 37 fights only came against boxers who were undefeated at the time – Abraham, Carl Froch and Kelly Pavlick (twice). Three of the losses were in the heavier super-middleweight (76kg) division.

Lucas 'Big Daddy' Browne.Source:News Limited

BIG DADDY ABOUT TO HIT IT BIG

AUSTRALIA’S top-rated heavyweight Lucas ``Big Daddy’’ Browne could be just one bout away from fighting Wladimir Klitschko for the world heavyweight title.

Browne, the No.7 contender for Klitschko’s IBF title, is set to face Ukrainian Olympic bronze medallist Vyacheslav Glazkov in an IBF eliminator for the No.1 contender spot.

IBF ratings committee member and former vice president, Ray Wheatley tells me that the No.1 spot in the Klitschko queue will become vacant after current No.1 Kubrat Pulev of Bulgaria fights for the title in Hamburg on September 6.

Klitschko, who stopped Brisbane’s Alex Leapai in April, is favoured to beat Pulev even though the Bulgarian is undefeated in 20 fights and has beaten solid opposition including Americans Tony Thompson and Travis Walker and the giant Alexander Ustinov from Belarus.

Browne is unbeaten in 21 fights with 18 KOs.

``We are very keen for this fight,’’ said Browne’s manager Matt Clark. ``Glazkov suits Lucas to a tee and it will be a high profile bout that will lift Lucas to the top of the world ratings.

``Glazkov struggled to beat an American named Derric Rossy on the weekend and it’s a perfect fight for Lucas.’’

``Lucas is willing to fight anyone if it makes sense and I think Parker and his team need to be more realistic.

``Why would we put Lucas in with someone who has had only 10 fights? Lucas is focused on the fighters above him in the ratings, not someone who is just making his name.’’

In Pennsylvania on the weekend, Parker dropped heavyweight Keith Thompson twice in the third round on his way to a TKO victory at the Sands Casino. It was his 10th win in 10 fights.

But the night was a disaster for New Zealand’s top rated fighter when lanky, undefeated Russian light heavyweight Vasily Lepikhin dropped tough southpaw Robert “The Butcher” Berridge three times on his way to a fifth round stoppage.

RICKY Hatton, the man who ended the career of Kostya Tszyu, is now targeting another Australian light-welterweight.

Hatton, now one of Britain’s top trainers and promoters, wants to match Australia’s No.9 WBA ranked Chad ``Hollywood’’ Bennett with his fighter Kirill Relikh of Belarus..

Bennett, who has a 34-4-3 record with 25 KOs, stopped Indonesian Stevi Ongen Ferdinandus (15-7-1, 8 KOs) in round five at the Nelson Bay Diggers Club near Newcastle last week.

Hatton wants Bennett’s world ranking for red-hot Relikh, who is 16-0 with 14 KOs.

In his last fight, in April, Relikh stopped Bribie Island’s Ty Gilchrist in the opening round in Sheffield.

``I’ve already beaten one Australian quite easily and I can’t see Bennett being much tougher,” Relikh said.

Hatton, who also fought both Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, says: ``Kirill has that raw potential that really gets trainers excited.

``When he first came over (from Belarus) he was a little bit upright, like they are from that part of the world, but I remember taking him on the pads and thinking `wow, what have they been feeding this guy?’

``You’ve only got to look at his record, 14 knockouts in 16 wins, to see that he can punch. We’ve added a few subtleties to his game now and the sky’s the limit.”

JEFF HORN TARGETS TWO WORLD-RATED FIGHTERS

AUSTRALIA’S world-rated welterweight Jeff Horn wants two fights at the end of 2014 to round out a great year.

He marries longtime sweetheart Jo Buckley on September 6 and after a honeymoon in Thailand wants to crash the world’s top 10 by the end of the year.

He is currently rated in the top 15 by the WBA and WBO.

``Our plan has always been for Jeff to make the world ratings in 2014,’’ said his trainer Glenn Rushton, ``climb high in the top 10 rankings in 2015 and then go for a world title in 2016. He has done everything right so far and we want to finish 2014 in a big way with world-rated opponents in November and December.’’

Rushton said his fighter was still keen to fight Anthony Mundine, who has instead been making noises about boxing hot Russian Sergey Rabchenko.

McCONNELL SCORES CAREER BEST WIN

QUEENSLAND’S former Australian featherweight champion Corey McConnell scored the biggest win of his career on Saturday when he stopped Filipino Ryan Sermona at Narrabri, NSW for the WBC International super-featherweight title.

Sermona went into the fight ranked the No.10 contender for the IBF world title.

He was stopped on a cut in the seventh round.

McConnell has done a sterling job rebuilding his career after his one defeat in 16 starts, against England’s Commonwealth champ Lee Selby last year.

Sermona (16-6, 8 KOs) scored a crushing win over world-class West Australian Matt Garlett on his previous visit to Australia.

Victoria Hopkins and son Alex. Her husband Corporal Mathew Hopkins died in Afghanistan in 2009.Source:News Corp Australia

KEVIN NOW FIGHTS FOR MEMORY OF SOLDIERS

KEVIN Alcock, president of the Sherwood-Indooroopilly RSL Sub-Branch, was a pretty handy welterweight 50 years ago, boxing under the ring name of Ricardo Cortez.

At Brisbane’s Festival Hall in 1963 he stopped Graham Hayes on the undercard of a cracking main event that saw America’s former world champ Ralph Dupas win a 12-round decision over the great Queenslander Gary Cowburn.

Dupas had just lost his world junior-middleweight title to Sandro Mazzinghi, while Cowburn was coming off wins over George Bracken and George Barnes.

These days Kevin is doing great things with the RSL.

On Saturday he will host nine families of Queensland soldiers killed in Afghanistan when Major General John Cantwell unveils a memorial to the fallen at the Sherwood-Indooroopilly RSL.

The memorial is a bronze replica of the wall at Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan that contained the names of 114 coalition soldiers, including 40 Australians, killed in Oruzgan Province.

The flags of Australia, France, the Netherlands and the United States will be flown on Saturday and the four national anthems will be played at the conclusion of the service which begins at 11am.

Corporal Mathew Hopkins, one of the Australians killed, attended Sherwood State School. Students from the school will attend Saturday’s ceremony as well as more than 100 Australian soldiers in uniform.

Boxing promoter Frank Maloney two years ago. He is now Kellie Maloney and is planning a sex-change.Source:Getty Images

KELLIE IS PERFECTLY FRANK ABOUT RETURN

ONE OF the biggest stories in boxing for a long time has to be the sex-change plans of Lennox Lewis’s feisty little promoter Frank Maloney, who is now known as Kellie Maloney.

Kellie, 61, who fathered three daughters, is planning to fight her way back to the top of the boxing industry.

``I was the only man to manage a British world heavyweight champion,’’ she says. ``Now I would like to be the only female to guide the next generation of future British champions.’’

Kellie said she always knew she was a woman trapped in a man’s body but she hid her secret even from her closest friends and family.

Lennox Lewis said he was as shocked as everyone else by the sex-change news.

``My initial thought was that it was a wind up,’’ he said. ``The great thing about life, and boxing, is that, day to day, you never know what to expect. This world we live in isn’t always cut and dried or black and white, and coming from the boxing fraternity, I can only imagine what a difficult decision this must be for Kellie.

``However, having taken some time to read Kellie’s statements, I understand better what she, and others in similar situations, are going through. I think that ALL people should be allowed to live their lives in a way that brings them harmony and inner peace.

``I respect Kellie’s decision and say that if this is what brings about true happiness in her life, than so be it.’’

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